My Thoughts are Fragile

One night as I was trying to get dinner on the table Jefferson was telling me about an episode of something he had watched on PBS kids. He was explaining each scene of the show in detail, and I have to admit I was not really listening as I worked around the kitchen. I stopped him, and asked him to clear his project off the dinner table and put his shoes in the closet. He did those things, then came back, paused, then looked at me and declared "You made me forget what I was saying to you! My thoughts are fragile, you can't stop me when I'm in the middle of telling you something!"

I love how he phrases things.

Several times recently I've seen this quote floating around the internet:
"Listen earnestly to anything your children want to tell you, no matter what. If you don't listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won't tell you the big stuff when they are big. Because to them, all of it has always been big stuff" Catherine M. Wallace

Sadly, I have always been much better at making noise then listening. From the time I was little I've been a non-stop chatter-box. I remember my grandma always saying "You just never stop talking!"

Jefferson takes after me in that way, and processes things by talking through them. He wakes up talking and falls asleep mid-sentence sometimes, and then talks in his sleep during the night.

I'm trying to figure out ways to set times of when I can give full attention to him and still encourage him talking to me, but also have some time when I am "off the clock", if that makes sense. I don't feel capable of "listening eagerly" all day (I wish I did!!), but I do want him to feel loved and like I want to hear things that are important to him.

I am wondering if I set aside small portions of time where I'm listening to him with all my attention, if he will feel heard enough then that he won't feel as needy at the other times? For now that is going to be my goal, a set "Jefferson" time each day when my focus is just him, and then see how that goes and go from there.